Various plastic articles, such as plastic closures and preforms for containers, have been formed by a compression molding process. Some compression molding machines have a plurality of tools mounted in a circumferential array on a rotateable turret in a plurality of opposed co-acting pairs. The tools of each pair carry opposed male and female mold sections that when closed together form a cavity in which plastic articles may be compression molded. During a portion of the rotation of the turret, the mold tooling pairs are moved toward each other for compression molding articles between the tooling pairs and away from each other for releasing articles molded between the tooling pairs and to receive fresh charges of plastic into the mold cavities. The charges of plastic may be taken and delivered from an extruded stream of plastic discharged from an extruder to provide a relatively rapidly available supply of plastic material for the molding machine.